I'm not writing this memory as a getting to know you, but as an insight into a
unique political and
cultural period that is now gone. I'm writing this so that
people like myself will
remember the days of pre-Lee Taiwan, and an
era that was lost to Taiwanese independance and
democracy. This Taiwan I knew, for better or for worse, is slowly
slipping away as power is once again
bestowed upon the
people.
Most people have some sort of a symbol or idea remeniscent from their childhood-- for me, it was my
Vespa. As a piece of machinery, it was beautiful. It had style, and its lines were aesthetically in
motion. Earlier this year, I saw one on display at
MoMA, and another in
Vogue; maybe those New England bred
Talbots-wearing curators saw in it the same sense of infinite
promise that I saw, during the summer at the age of 15.
When I was
younger I'd spend some of my summers in
Taipei, where my parents were from before they got shipped off to
school in the
States, and where my
grandparents still lived. I had a romanticized vision of
Taiwan itself then; though I don't know if it is my perspective that has changed or
Taiwan itself.
My family spent most of our time in parts of
Taipei (most of Taipei, in fact) which were Mandarin-speaking enclaves-- inhabited by Chinese
expatriates from The
Revolution in 1949. The only contact I had with the
native Taiwanese were the
servants. It took me a few years to even
realize that they had their own
language and
government before the
Nationalists came in. We (the expats) were invaders,
dictators and
oppressors, but I was
oblivious.
I had no idea of the
political landscape of Taipei, and how I, personally was enmeshed in it. Perhaps if I had known I wouldn't have done what I did. I was 15, and we weren't told these things. My parents themselves had an ideal of Taiwan-- that we were not the oppressors but
valiantly opposing bourgiose Chinese
communism. And the natives were
hicks.
Because my older
cousin had been
kidnapped when he was in
Taipei, my grandparents and
parents were always
extremely protective of us. (A note about kidnapping in Taiwan-- It's a business-- mostly they never ask for
too much that would make it worthwhile to call the
police. And they almost never
kill you.) We weren't allowed to go out unaccompanied by the
chauffeur, an elderly, conservative man who had been working for my grandparents
since before the widespread use of
cars.
Not quite the ideal person to
carouse around the city with. So sometimes during the early afternoon, when everybody was
asleep to avoid the oppressive heat, or sometimes late at night, I'd take the
Vespa.
If you're familiar with the Vespa
Italjet Velocifero, you'd understand. I had a limited edition in
silver with a matching helmet, my
cousin had one in
British racing green. We discovered
everything about the city that we weren't supposed to know-- we went to the trendy
bars, nightclubs, and discovered a
Trader Vic's in the heart of downtown
Taipei-- that restaurant that used to be across from the
Plaza in
New York. We found
Americans and confused them.
We went to
Snake Alley, the hidden
ghetto of Taipei merely
because it was a ghetto. The main influence is
organized crime and snakes. The snakes are sold dead or alive, sometimes cooked. Sold as food, curiosities, pets, or potions to increase
libido-- I saw a man kill a snake, drain the
blood into a glass, and drink the
blood.
The second
attraction were the
whorehouses, disguised as 'barbershops'. Taipei has a deserved reputation as being a very 'clean' city-- which is why the
brothels are hidden away in
Snake Alley-- an old and roundabout part of
town. Some of the
girls were younger than I was, (15 at the time) and were
immigrants from the mainland, Thailand, or the
Philippines. I found out later that most of them were kidnapped (for a different reason than my sort of kidnapping) or sold by their impoverished
parents. I'd never seen a
prostitute before-- It even took me a while to figure out that the 'barbershops' didn't have anything to do with
haircuts. We tried to talk to them-- but most didn't speak
Mandarin or
English. I've heard that this section of the city is mostly '
cleaned up' now.
We once went up to the mountains, and on the way saw the poverty of the native
Taiwanese that was not supposed to exist-- shacks in the
country and on farms.
All the while, the threat of
kidnapping was very real, as my family had been involved in the
old KMT, as opposed to its
current incarnation. Taiwan is a state that has always been under the looming shadow of
war-- a tiny
country suspended in a web of
Machiavellian maneuvering that reaches across the
Strait, across the
Pacific, and around the
world. We were caught in the
middle of this web.
My cousin studies
medicine in
Boston, I'm in
New York. He rowed for
Harvard, I row for
NYU. And we're all living this ridiculous
safe prep-school life like our
parents before us, because it's considered too
dangerous to go back to Taipei.
Politically, and physically. My
grandparents now spend most of their time
abroad.
My Vespa showed me the "real" Taipei, with intrigue and color. We would
run away from the
proper Taiwan and come out on the other side. It gave me a
perspective on
danger and truth that I otherwise would not have.
Every time I hear that high-pitched sound of that 49cc
engine, I think back to a Taipei which I knew that no longer
exists, merely because there is
no place for me, no place for the exiles, the ones that
ran away.
Don't judge me on how things were and how I was raised. I can't change that.